5 ms·

I get your point, but the nuclear bomb by preventing major countries from going to war with each other is a good contender for most impactful technology of the

I get your point, but the nuclear bomb by preventing major countries from going to war with each other is a good contender for most impactful technology of the 20th century.

Tloewald 11y ago
Oh for sure (on the nuclear bomb) -- it's really impossible to compare these things meaningfully. Nuclear bomb? Modern agriculture? Penicillin? Vaccines? It's really impossible to judge.
notahacker 11y ago
Which countries did the nuclear bomb prevent going to war? There was never any serious prospect of the US invading the USSR or vice versa but MUAD certainly didn't stop them from involving themselves in more wars (generally supporting opposing sides) in the late twentieth century than in the previous four, India and Pakistan haven't exactly softened their stances on Kashmir since acquiring deadly weapons, and the UK even had part of its territory briefly annexed by a foreign power.
- ufmace 11y ago
  Tell that to the NATO and Warsaw Pact armies and all of the plans, materials, and infrastructure they built around fighting the Next Big European/Asian war. Huge amounts of money and piles of weapon systems were developed by both sides with an eye towards fighting that war. It's easy to say that in hindsight, but given all of the tension around the Iron Curtain and all of the times the US and USSR came very close indeed to going to war despite how likely total nuclear destruction was, it seems short-sighted to just brush off the idea of that war actually happening if neither side had any nuclear weapons.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    I think it was more luck than judgement that we escaped annihilation. There were any number of times where a wrong call would have meant Game Over. And the probability would have been much higher if someone other than Gorbachev had been the last Soviet president. History isn't over yet. The risk is probably higher now than at any time since it peaked in the mid-80s.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    Depends, personally I'd see the number of times the US and USSR nearly went to war (or actually did, but indirectly) despite having nuclear weapons as pretty good indication that lack of any feasible strategy for inflicting a decisive military defeat on the other party was a much more significant factor in the Cold War not turning hot than any nuke-induced desire for peace Ultimately, one naval officer's minority vote[1] prevented a Soviet sub from launching a tactical nuclear weapon at US shipping. Several thousand miles of ocean prevented the Soviet Union from feasibly achieving decisive military victory against the United States. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
    - ufmace 11y ago
      It's true that an invasion of the US mainland was never in the cards, given the situation during the cold war. Pretty much nobody was seriously worried about that. What NATO was very worried about was a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, which is a very reasonable worry considering the number and detail of Soviet plans for doing just that. For their part, the Soviets were very worried about a combined NATO invasion, which seems quite reasonable considering that Germany alone, while also fighting/occupying most of the rest of Europe, managed to get to the suburbs of Moscow, and kill millions of Russians along the way. Now if the Soviets did manage to invade and conquer Western Europe and maintain control over it, then they might be in a rather better position to consider direct attacks against the US. Which is a good part of the reason why the US invested so much in keeping them out of Western Europe.
chimeracoder 11y ago
> the nuclear bomb by preventing major countries from going to war with each other is a good contender for most impactful technology of the 20th century. It didn't prevent the superpowers from having wars with each other. It just shifted the battle fronts, so now the superpowers fight through proxy wars, and the deaths all happen in distant, "developing" countries.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  It's speculation, right? Either it had an overwhelming effect OR it had little if any effect. We'll never know -- thank goodness. We do know that penicillin, clean drinking water, vaccines, and the bicycle had enormous effects all over the world.
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    > It's speculation, right? Either it had an overwhelming effect OR it had little if any effect. We'll never know -- thank goodness. By that logic, we can 'never know' anything about historical effects, ever, and it's pointless to discuss the consequences of any historical events, including the others you mentioned. But really, the effect of the nuclear bomb in shifting the battlefronts of wars to proxy wars in developing nations under hegemonic control is as clear and as accepted by historians as we can expect. It may not be quite on par with the "theory" of evolution being all-but-proven fact, but it's in that ballpark.
    - Tloewald 11y ago
      It's not pointless but we can tell for certain that some things had a certain direct impact. It's very hard to claim that the psychological impact of nuclear weapons was X as a matter of fact, and it's nothing at all like the theory of evolution which is confirmed by ridiculous amounts of direct and indirect evidence.
- simonh 11y ago
  In a world without nuclear weapons, the USSR would have invaded Europe (and the Middle East) and the entire continent would have been laid waste. They came ridiculously close to doing it anyway despite nuclear weapons. If you think that such a European war would have meant that conflicts in other parts of the world would not have happened, I think you're being a bit naive.

I get your point, but the nuclear bomb by preventing major countries from going to war with each other is a good contender for most impactful technology of the 20th century.

Tloewald 11y ago

Oh for sure (on the nuclear bomb) -- it's really impossible to compare these things meaningfully. Nuclear bomb? Modern agriculture? Penicillin? Vaccines? It's really impossible to judge.

notahacker 11y ago

Which countries did the nuclear bomb prevent going to war? There was never any serious prospect of the US invading the USSR or vice versa but MUAD certainly didn't stop them from involving themselves in more wars (generally supporting opposing sides) in the late twentieth century than in the previous four, India and Pakistan haven't exactly softened their stances on Kashmir since acquiring deadly weapons, and the UK even had part of its territory briefly annexed by a foreign power.

ufmace 11y ago
Tell that to the NATO and Warsaw Pact armies and all of the plans, materials, and infrastructure they built around fighting the Next Big European/Asian war. Huge amounts of money and piles of weapon systems were developed by both sides with an eye towards fighting that war. It's easy to say that in hindsight, but given all of the tension around the Iron Curtain and all of the times the US and USSR came very close indeed to going to war despite how likely total nuclear destruction was, it seems short-sighted to just brush off the idea of that war actually happening if neither side had any nuclear weapons.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  I think it was more luck than judgement that we escaped annihilation. There were any number of times where a wrong call would have meant Game Over. And the probability would have been much higher if someone other than Gorbachev had been the last Soviet president. History isn't over yet. The risk is probably higher now than at any time since it peaked in the mid-80s.
- notahacker 11y ago
  Depends, personally I'd see the number of times the US and USSR nearly went to war (or actually did, but indirectly) despite having nuclear weapons as pretty good indication that lack of any feasible strategy for inflicting a decisive military defeat on the other party was a much more significant factor in the Cold War not turning hot than any nuke-induced desire for peace Ultimately, one naval officer's minority vote[1] prevented a Soviet sub from launching a tactical nuclear weapon at US shipping. Several thousand miles of ocean prevented the Soviet Union from feasibly achieving decisive military victory against the United States. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
  - ufmace 11y ago
    It's true that an invasion of the US mainland was never in the cards, given the situation during the cold war. Pretty much nobody was seriously worried about that. What NATO was very worried about was a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, which is a very reasonable worry considering the number and detail of Soviet plans for doing just that. For their part, the Soviets were very worried about a combined NATO invasion, which seems quite reasonable considering that Germany alone, while also fighting/occupying most of the rest of Europe, managed to get to the suburbs of Moscow, and kill millions of Russians along the way. Now if the Soviets did manage to invade and conquer Western Europe and maintain control over it, then they might be in a rather better position to consider direct attacks against the US. Which is a good part of the reason why the US invested so much in keeping them out of Western Europe.

chimeracoder 11y ago

> the nuclear bomb by preventing major countries from going to war with each other is a good contender for most impactful technology of the 20th century. It didn't prevent the superpowers from having wars with each other. It just shifted the battle fronts, so now the superpowers fight through proxy wars, and the deaths all happen in distant, "developing" countries.

Tloewald 11y ago
It's speculation, right? Either it had an overwhelming effect OR it had little if any effect. We'll never know -- thank goodness. We do know that penicillin, clean drinking water, vaccines, and the bicycle had enormous effects all over the world.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  > It's speculation, right? Either it had an overwhelming effect OR it had little if any effect. We'll never know -- thank goodness. By that logic, we can 'never know' anything about historical effects, ever, and it's pointless to discuss the consequences of any historical events, including the others you mentioned. But really, the effect of the nuclear bomb in shifting the battlefronts of wars to proxy wars in developing nations under hegemonic control is as clear and as accepted by historians as we can expect. It may not be quite on par with the "theory" of evolution being all-but-proven fact, but it's in that ballpark.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    It's not pointless but we can tell for certain that some things had a certain direct impact. It's very hard to claim that the psychological impact of nuclear weapons was X as a matter of fact, and it's nothing at all like the theory of evolution which is confirmed by ridiculous amounts of direct and indirect evidence.
simonh 11y ago
In a world without nuclear weapons, the USSR would have invaded Europe (and the Middle East) and the entire continent would have been laid waste. They came ridiculously close to doing it anyway despite nuclear weapons. If you think that such a European war would have meant that conflicts in other parts of the world would not have happened, I think you're being a bit naive.